


Love and Work

by we_could_be_heroes



Category: Maurice (1987), Maurice - E. M. Forster
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4527231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_could_be_heroes/pseuds/we_could_be_heroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maurice and Alec's happy future together may have been improbable, but not impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Work

“Like this?” Alec asks, his body already hot and sweaty above Maurice's. The sun was relentless all day, the wind barely moving a twig. Even now, in the shade of the woodshed, the air stands still while the sun still blazes on the horizon.

“No, no,” Maurice says and shifts his legs. “A bit more.”

Alec tries a bit more, placing his hand next to Maurice's shoulder. Sawdust sticks to his palm. Maurice wipes his forehead with his forearm and puts sawdust there, too.

“Better?”

Maurice doesn't reply for a while and then says, shifting again. “Can you be more ... forceful?”

“You come up here and be more forceful!” Alec sits back on his haunches and drags his hand through his thick hair, sprinkling sawdust into his eyes. Blinking against it, he adds a light smack on Maurice's bottom so he doesn't take offense. It's more of an imitation of playfulness as he's too tired to waste much motion. He feels sweat trickle down his back.

“Ah, but I will.” Contrary to his words, Maurice stretches out his legs. Alec lies down next to him, enjoying the feeling of his back straightening on the hard ground. The ground's not cold, in the day's heat it cannot be, but it's colder than Maurice's scorching body. After a moment, Maurice turns his head to look at Alec and adds one of those sentences that take some preparation: “Once I feel confident I can lift myself up without my body falling apart in all directions.”

“Nah, today was nothing,” Alec says, but the truth is he's beyond worn-out. He has a right to be, too, as he had to work twice as hard to make up for Maurice's inefficiency. Maurice is a fast learner, no doubt about that, and it doesn't take him too long to figure out any of the tools, but he still has some trouble prioritizing tasks and even more trouble assessing their difficulty. Alec was content to take advantage of Maurice's impracticality while it lasted – not quite having the heart to tell him that had they switched roles, Alec could spend half the day whittling in the shade while Maurice would labor, well, probably well past the sunset. Not to mention Alec takes certain pride in his ability to provide for both of them and has no intention of hurting Maurice's own pride.

The fence-building incident is still fresh in their memory after all – on that very first day of their employment, Maurice spent three hours carefully measuring the distance between planks and then painstakingly beating them into the ground and when Alec finally took pity on his slowness and asked him whether he'd like to take a break for lunch, Maurice asked him whether they were done for the day.

“No, we won't be done until we've built it.”

“Which part?”

“All of the parts.”

“ _All of it?_ But that's absurd, we've barely a tenth. It's impossible to finish today.”

“Not at this pace, no.”

Alec cannot help but smile at the memory and he starts drifting off to sleep without realizing it.

Maurice watches his friend doze. He looks at his calm features, the unruly hair, the black eyelashes, the sheen of sweat. He forgets about the heat and discomfort and a different kind of warmth floods his heart. He loves Alec even when they fail, perhaps especially when they fail as he's more vulnerable to the strike of the intensity of the feeling then. _How did I get here?_ He wonders. _Who was it that arranged my life for me?_

Meanwhile, the summer sun turns crimson and starts its descent below the horizon. Maurice watches Alec's eyelids flicker open.

"What, was I asleep?” He sits up. “I could go for a swim.”

Maurice sits up too. “Well, I have sawdust everywhere,” he offers noncommittally.

Though their  muscles ache, they walk the mile to the river. The sun has completely set by that time and they embrace and kiss in the moonlit water.

 


End file.
